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Thursday, 27 October 2011

Not a New Postal Scam

Eagle eyed readers of Natland News will have noticed that the item entitled New Postal Scam has been removed. This is because our internet guru advises that it is not a new scam, the amounts involved were far less and it was closed down long ago. To quote:

This scam led you into phoning a premium rate number where you were asked a number of questions taking several minutes and costing you about £15, not £315. However, it was closed down several years ago. Nevertheless, the e-mail about it crops up from time to time, usually just before Christmas. It is the internet equivalent of a chain letter and should be ignored. Unfortunately even the police are prone to mass distributing it when one of them receives it.

It is always good to be alert to the possibility of such an e-mail being a fraud but before sending it to everyone in your address book, first take the trouble to check whether it is real or a fake. This is easy to do. There are several websites devoted to identifying such messages. One of the best is Hoax Slayer. Just put a key phrase from the message into its search box and see the results. In this particular case I inserted the premium rate telephone number.